American futurist says petrol will cost less than Rs 30

Mumbai: American futurist Tony Seba has predicted that petrol in India would cost less than Rs 30 a litre in five years from now, according to a report in The Economic Times.

"Emerging technology is going to reduce the world's dependence on petrol so much that prices will plummet," the ET report said. Seba has famously been known for rightly saying in advance that solar power sector will witness a boom at the time when prices were sky high.

Seba is an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, and an instructor in Entrepreneurship, Disruption and Clean Energy at Stanford’s Continuing Studies Program, according to the report. His foreseeing on solar power sector later turned out to be true.

So now the question arises whether he will be able to retain his tag of rightly saying things in advance at a time when odds are against his predictions? These days governments in several countries pushing the case for increased use of electric vehicles that may mar prospects of conventional cars' usage.

Seba says advent of self-drive cars would slash demand for oil drastically and that could also bring the price of crude oil to $25 a barrel. "Oil demand will peak 2021-2020 and will go down 100 million barrels, to 70 million barrels within 10 years," Seba told CNBC.